Time For Lights Out Even Though It's 8 am.

This shot shoes how diverse they are. They have beautiful markings which they get from their dad.
Here's a closer up view to show the details in their coats.

We finally got number eight at about 7:30 in the morning, so twelve hours of labor. DeLa is a Rock Star. Now it's time to put all fresh new bedding in the box and clean the whelping area and utensils. We try to get Mom out to tinkle if she will leave her babies. It's not unusual for them to not want to, then we just put down potty pads. Whatever momma wants momma gets.

These babies are perfect and we don't have any concern for any of them, but we like to be safe so we stayed until the Morning shift arrived so Momma wouldn't be left alone.

For the next four weeks we weigh the puppies at least twice a day in grams, then we act accordingly if one isn't seeming to thrive. Sometimes this means days and days of round the clock NG tube feeding until the baby gets stable. It's a lot of work but it's worth it. We have an exceptionally low mortality rate compared to breeders nationally. Every one of our puppies is worth any extra effort needed. I'll have to tell you about Ox in another blog.

As long as the puppies remain healthy and thriving we begin implementing a program called Puppy Culture at three days old. This sets our puppies up to be calm, polite, well adjusted, even tempered, fun loving and mostly crate trained by the time they are eight weeks old and ready to go home. This is where I really get busy because puppy development is my special area. If you don't really love it you can end up doing more harm than good so all our employees are vetted on the job to make sure they not only can do the job but have the right temperament to work with the babies. We only use positive reinforcement for all of our dogs and it has really paid off. The handful of adult dogs that live on campus are our best friends. We're encouraged by the owners to spoil them in anyway we want. We can even bring them over to our houses for sleepovers. It's their favorite, and chicken nuggets.

I love talking about our program. If anyone has any questions please ask. Even if it's just something weird you're curious about. We have a lot of very funny discussions at work.